Contrast Security Assess vs Seeker comparison

The compared Contrast Security and Black Duck solutions aren't in the same category. Contrast Security is ranked #27 in SAST , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 0.6% mindshare in the category. Black Duck is ranked #18 in IS , and holds a 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Black Duck users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,337 Views
735 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Seeker

Read 1 Seeker review

736 Views
7 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Seeker

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Contrast Security Assess and Seeker based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST).

To learn more, read our detailed Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

August 2025

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Helped 867,370 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Contrast Security Assess

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (27th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (27th)

Seeker

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Internet Security (18th), Mobile Threat Defense (16th), API Security (24th)

Mindshare comparison

Contrast Security Assess and Seeker aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Contrast Security Assess is designed for Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and holds a mindshare of 0.6%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Seeker, on the other hand, focuses on Internet Security, holds 0.1% mindshare.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Contrast Security Assess	0.6%
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)	20.3%
Checkmarx One	9.9%
Other	69.19999999999999%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Internet Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Seeker	0.1%
Cisco Umbrella	34.6%
Zscaler Internet Access	32.4%
Other	32.900000000000006%

Internet Security

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister

Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It has an excellent API interface to pull APIs.

Assess has brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time. Instead of going through the Jenkins process to build an application, they can see right off the bat that if there are errors in the code and fix them before it even goes to build.

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San K

Senior Group Leader at Infosys

More effective than dynamic scanners, but is missing useful learning capabilities

One area that Seeker can improve is to make it more customizable. All security scanning tools have a defined set of rules that are based on certain criteria which they will use to detect issues. However, the criteria that you set initially is not something that all applications are going to need. The purposes for which applications are designed may differ in practice in the industry, and because of this, there will always be tools that sometimes report false positives. Thus, there should be some means with which I can customize the way that Seeker learns about our applications, possibly by using some kind of AI / ML capability within the tool that will automatically reduce the number of false positives that we get as we use the tool over time. Obviously, when we first start using the scanning tool there will be false positives, but as it keeps going and as I keep using the tool, there should be a period of time where either the application can learn how to ignore false positives, or I can customize it do so. Adding this type of functionality would definitely prevent future issues when it comes to reporting false positives, and this is a key area that we have already asked the vendor to improve on, in general. On a different note, there is one feature that isn't completely available right now where you can integrate Seeker with an open-source vulnerability scanner or composition analysis tool such as Black Duck. I would very much like this capability to be available to us out-of-the-box, so that we can easily integrate with tools like Black Duck in such a way that any open source components that are used in the front-end are easily identified. I think this would be a huge plus for Seeker. Another feature within Seeker which could benefit from improvement is active verification, which lets you actively verify a vulnerability. This feature currently doesn't work in certain applications, particularly in scenarios where you have requested tokens. When we bought the tool, we didn't realize this and we were not told about it by the vendor, so initially it was a big challenge for us to overcome it and properly begin our deployment.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."

"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."

"In our most critical applications, we have a deep dive in the code evaluation, which was something we usually did with periodic vulnerability assessments, code reviews, etc. Now, we have real time access to it. It's something that has greatly enhanced our code's quality. We have actually embedded a KPI in regards to the improvement of our code shell. For example, Contrast provides a baseline where libraries and the usability of the code are evaluated, and they produce a score. We always aim to improve that score. On a quarterly basis, we have added this to our KPIs."

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"A significant advantage of Seeker is that it is an interactive scanner, and we have found it to be much more effective in reducing the amount of false positives than dynamic scanners such as AppScan, Micro Focus Fortify, etc. Furthermore, with Seeker, we are finding more and more valid (i.e. "true") positives over time compared with the dynamic scanners."

Cons

"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."

"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"One area that Seeker can improve is to make it more customizable. All security scanning tools have a defined set of rules that are based on certain criteria which they will use to detect issues. However, the criteria that you set initially is not something that all applications are going to need."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"The licensing for Seeker is user-based and for 50 users I believe it costs about $70,000 per year."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Government

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?

When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?

Technical support for the solution should be faster. We have to further analyze what kind of CVEs are in the reported libraries and what part of the code is affected. That analysis can be added to ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Contrast Security Assess?

Contrast Security Assess is deployed on-cloud in our organization. I would recommend Contrast Security Assess to other users. It's a really good tool. It provides lots of details on web-based vulne...

See all answers

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Comparisons

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PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Contrast Security Assess

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Qualys Web Application Scanning vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 8% of the time

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Coverity vs Seeker

Compared 38% of the time

Checkmarx One vs Seeker

Compared 19% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

September 2025

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Buyer's Guide

Internet Security

August 2025

Download Seeker product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

No data available

Overview

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Seeker®, interactive application security testing (IAST) solution, gives you unparalleled visibility into your modern web, cloud based and microservices based app security posture. It automatically verifies, prioritizes and reports on critical vulnerabilities in real time. It identifies vulnerability trends against compliance standards (e.g., OWASP Top 10, PCI DSS, GDPR, CAPEC, and CWE/SANS Top 25). Seeker enables security teams to identify and track sensitive data to ensure that it is handled securely and not stored in log files or databases with weak or no encryption. Seeker’s seamless integration into CI/CD workflows enables fast interactive application security testing at DevOps speed.

Black Duck

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

El Al Airlines and Société Française du Radiotelephone

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

August 2025

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